


The debt

by eggshelled



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Drabble, F/M, Gen, Implied Relationships, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, asajj and her abandonment issues are showing, no beta or editing, no comfort, padme's compassion and integrity save her life but also make her a quasi-prisoner, wherein ahsoka managed to affect asajj more than she realized
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:41:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26023642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eggshelled/pseuds/eggshelled
Summary: Asajj becomes indebted to Padmé after the senator saves her without the purpose of extracting a favor. Asajj doesn't abandon her debts. [Sidious has revealed himself, Vader is unveiled, and Kenobi wishes to use the woman as a lure to find and eliminate the sith. Well Kenobi can find him on his own - Asajj has a debt to repay]
Relationships: Implied Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker
Comments: 1
Kudos: 15





	The debt

“Touch me and die,” the dathomiri woman on the ground rasps. 

Her enemy, her annoyance, is a woman in a white flightsuit with its loose neck pulled over her nose. Compassionate eyes survey the damage done to her. 

A bounty hunter come to collect the remains of her to carry her, presumably, back to her once Master, in an effort to salvage a useful tool. Hah. As though Asajj would calmly follow him back to the place of her chains, to the site of her betrayal and rejection. 

The woman shifts closer and Asajj ignites her saber, but doesn’t hold the energy necessary to swing or even sit up. Her legs won’t respond and it is difficult to breathe. The Force feels far away. She draws in the Dark Side, but it forsakes her for her weakness. She is dying. And with only a stupid woman as her audience. Pathetic. Not even falling to the saber of Skywalker or Kenobi. 

The bounty hunter, Asajj notes with little satisfaction, is gone after having been injured. Cad Bane, bested by a politician, and she had been bested by him. 

Her hunt had led her to the senator and more importantly her quarry - some princess of some insignificant rock with a sizeable bounty on her insipid little head - and Bane must have followed her.  _ Returning stolen goods _ , he’d said. Pah. 

Asajj’s eyes roll in her head. Her quarry is nowhere to be seen, not that it does her any good. The senator stands over her and she pulls the neck of her flightsuit down. A hiss of pressure escapes and a space-ready medpack ejects itself from her small backpack. The chill of the asteroid is making it difficult to think. Asajj’s saber rolls from numb fingers. “Leave me…”

“No,” the senator doesn't even humor her. “Now be quiet...I haven’t actually done this before…” 

How reassuring.

Injections of adrenaline and general sapient plasma replacement, bacta spray and gel patches, it’s all a blur but the woman, the senator, moves quickly. She spreads a waterproof survival blanket over her and sits back on her calves, sweaty but triumphant after the passage of an indeterminable amount of time. Asajj can feel the Force. Can feel her fingers. Her legs. Her injuries -  _ damn you Cad Bane _ \- are substantial but no longer life-threatening. 

The woman eyes her and Asajj stares back, feeling oddly docile. 

The Force manipulates around her, something bright and burning like the gravity well of a planet going supernova draws itself to her but doesn’t move through her like it would a Force-user. No. This...this is the echo of one, greatly intertwined. Skywalker. The lovesick pup. Not so one sided as she’d thought, it would seem. 

The woman stands shakily, pulling the neck of her flightsuit over her nose again. The temperature is dropping. “Okay...transport isn’t far…I’ll go meet them at the landing zone and guide them to you. My comm is broken.” As an absentminded gesture, she lays a hand on Asajj’s unharmed shoulder to squeeze. “I’ll be back as soon as possible. Don’t worry.” 

She’s earnest. What an idiot. 

“We’ll get you medical help first before I make any outbound calls to the Republic.” She hesitates. “I spoke with Ahsoka, you know...a little after she left the Order.” She stares at Asajj and she gets the uncomfortable feeling of being  _ seen  _ in all her facets. “She said you were kind. You even cooperated in clearing her name without pay. I’m sure if you cooperated the Republic would offer you a deal in exchange for information about Dooku and the Separatists.” She looks like she’ll say more, but regards her chronometer and tsks. “I’ll be back for you!” she says over her shoulder, jogging away. 

Asajj is gone, with the survival blanket, by the time the woman returns with her Republic sanctioned transportation. Asajj is only surprised Skywalker isn’t circling her now as the woman gets out of the transport, looking for her erstwhile charge. 

Launching her stolen gunship into the air, once Cad Bane’s and now hers, she adjusts the survival blanket around her shoulders and makes for destinations unknown for the time being. Once into hyperspace, she considers Amidala’s words. Not a trace of dishonesty, not even misdirection. She’d been soft with her on account of her past association with the togruta girl. 

But the time for contemplation about Amidala comes to an end when Asajj considers where she might make some credits. 

...

“Ventress!” the brig bellows in keen distress. “Release me at once, I will pay your ransom, but please, this is urgent. Whatever your Master -” 

Asajj rolls her eyes. “I don’t have a Master. Skywalker killed my last one and besides which I left his  _ employ  _ a long time ago. And I have no desire to serve anyone else again.” 

Silence. Then a tentative question: “Do you know what’s happening?” 

Asajj has no room in her for tenderness or sweet nothings, but even she is capable of at least enough emotion to fill a teacup and she shifts in discomfort. “Your lover, Skywalker, Fell. He calls the Master of Dooku his own - a fate I wouldn’t even wish on Kenobi. He is a maze filled with poison and vileness. Skywalker calls himself Vader, now. He has embraced his darkness, although I would wager that this is far from the first time he’s Fallen, just the most obvious and complete.” Being a bounty hunter has lent itself usefulness; credits, the hunt, an outlet, freedom, and information. Old Separatist contacts informed her of the death of Dooku and Grievous’s continuous escapes from the clutches of the jedi, and her own digging led her to Skywalker’s own Fall. She knows of only one sith left if Dooku is dead.

The woman knows this. Kenobi told her of this earlier, but the confirmation from an outsider seems to almost be too much for her. She keens like a wounded animal, but it is a knowing denial that spills from her.

“Anakin…” the senator whispers. “No, no, no, no…” 

Asajj feels her in the Force, wavering. The supernova that once ensconced her burns like fire, like the surface of a sun. It blisters, Asajj thinks, it must. Once it had cradled Amidala’s own signature but now it looms like a threat, a promise, a prison waiting to be locked. Her own signature is fading. The bright Force-signature of her spawn is bright even as she seems to be dwindling. Asajj frowns and checks her nails coolly. “I hadn’t realized the former Queen of Naboo so easily gave up. Is it that easy to die?” 

“What are you talking about?” The senator snaps, but it’s a bite without teeth. 

Bluntly, “I can feel you giving in. You’re dying.” To  _ despair  _ of all things. There are countless other things to give into in a moment such as this that would be far more appropriate in her opinion. 

The other woman hisses in a shaky breath. “You wouldn’t understand. I - I love him. We’ve been through so much, survived so much, and to think that I’ve lost him is - I  _ can’t _ .” 

“Skywalker isn’t dead because Vader isn’t,” Asajj explains blandly. “Trade one name for the other doesn’t mean that other part just breaks off. You can’t leave yourself no matter how much the jedi and the sith want to.” You can’t deny yourself. It’s something that during her time with Dooku and without, that Asajj has come to know intimately well. It is an incredibly bitter lesson that still sits in the back of her throat. “And I hadn’t realized you wouldn’t fight to drag him back kicking and screaming. Or that you’d be a bad mother.” 

“Excuse me?” There. The bite is back. Cool and a little more composed. 

“You’d abandon your spawn because your lover Falls? Leave them at the mercy of the galaxy? Leave them to either the jedi or the sith?” Asajj taunts. She does pity Amidala, truly, but she knows soft spots. Knows how to twist the knife. In the face of this strange fluctuation in her life-force, Asajj falls back on something tried and true that has pulled her through countless injuries and failures.  Compassion and empathy aren’t enough for everyone; too many times they encourage inaction. The jedi are fools for thinking these are the only answers. Sometimes wrath in all its forms - rage, spite, anger - are the companions that will set you back on your feet, bloodied and battered but ready. “With the jedi dropping like flies out there and the sith revealed - who do you think will start looking for your brat? The sith have the Rule of Two but eventually it turns to One and they’ll need a Second, and the jedi will want to rebuild. Tell me, Amidala, when you die, who would you like to raise your whelp? Because that is their destiny now, no matter what. One will be shaped into a weapon against your Republic by Vader and his Master. The other will make them a weapon against Vader.” 

Asajj gets up from her pilot’s chair to squat in front of the small brig on the Republic gunship she’d stolen to aid in her kidnapping plot. The senator sat wide eyed, still teary but they no longer fell. Her mouth opened and closed. She looks resentful but she is listening. 

“I’m asking so I can drop the kid off for their easy access, after you die of a  _ broken heart _ , of course.” Asajj cocks her head, letting herself smile, and draws out the taunt. “I’m sure the brat won’t be heartbroken to know how their mother chose to go out. Attachments are forbidden by the jedi and a weakness to the sith.” 

“That will not happen,” Amidala hisses suddenly, body coiling like the tense of a snake about to strike. Life sparks in her eyes and even though she doesn’t have the Force, Asajj can feel her smolder in righteous fury and fear. 

“ _ Really _ ? Who's gonna stop it? You?” Asajj basks in it. She's a changed woman, honest, but truly there are few things in the galaxy better than an angry woman. “I thought you were going to rest in peace.” 

Amidala’s lips purse. Her presence is stronger. That rage, delicious and untapped, knots itself over the bleeding heart that had been failing Amidala, tightens its hold over her and the whelp burns brighter in the Force too. That is going to be a pain to hide, but Asajj has her tricks. 

“How can the galaxy allow for peace when this is happening?” Amidala questions. It’s rhetorical. “I fought for Naboo when I’d still been a child.” Her hand hovers over her distended stomach. “I just wanted...I wanted Anakin here with me in this.” Her eyes track Asajj’s. 

“But instead you’ve got me,” Asajj finishes. “I pay my debts, Amidala,” she sneers. “And I don’t want your snotty brat so count yourself lucky. I am a free woman and there is a galaxy out there to explore and billions to hunt.” 

Amidala is silent for a long moment, so Asajj sits back on her heels and contemplates the woman she’s stolen from her home - a home she will likely never see again. “Where are you taking me?” 

“A medical ship in neutral territory. I don’t think it’d be a good idea for you to be wandering about in Separatist or Republic space for a while. I'm thinking a little vacation in the Outer Rim.” As neutral as one could be anymore. 

"Taris," Amidala guesses correctly. Mandalore is out of the question. There are few other places that offer aid to refugees and remain distant from the goings-on of Coruscant.

Asajj smirks. “You’re so much smarter without Skywalker attached at your hip.” 

Amidala flinches. “Please don’t. Not - not now.” 

Asajj frowns but possesses enough grace to let that seeping wound try to clot. “A medical ship orbiting Taris. You’d get better care on the planet, but it’s easier to leave a medical ship.” 

“Do you anticipate needing to flee?” she asks. 

Asajj stares. “I’m a wanted dark side user and a fugitive on the run from the Republic and the Confederacy - not to mention that _you_ are the lover of a sith lord and carrying his child. Don’t you think we should be a little more aware of escape plans?” 

Amidala blinks and then lets out a short, incredulous laugh. “I am on the run, aren’t I?” 

“You can’t go back to Republic space, unless you want to be dropped at his Master’s feet.” Asajj rolls her neck. “Darth Sidious is your dearest Chancellor. The puppetmaster of this whole war. You’re a greater danger to him than the whole Jedi Order.” At least Dooku had believed so; a beloved figure in peacetime and in war, with charisma and wit, and a close friend to the jedi. He had believed her to be a greater threat, after a fashion, than Skywalker.

Amidala knows this, Kenobi told her this, but repetition is necessary. Her voice is soft when she replies, a little harder, sterner. “Palpatine...I knew he’d been...corrupted but to think no one saw this-” 

“He’s been playing dejarik the whole time everyone else was playing pazaak.” Asajj spreads her hands wide. “After Taris, we’ll planet hop to a few locations to throw them off the scent and have you smuggled away in some backwater village in the Outer Rim.” 

Amidala is quiet. “Why?” 

Asajj considers her. “I told you, I pay my debts. You saved my life and gave me an offer.” Even though privately, Asajj wonders if this isn’t simply a debt. She owes Amidala nothing more than to hide her from Vader. To do anything beyond that surely exceeds the debt she owes. Is it really just her own inability to disregard the woman who once earnestly offered her a life beyond a prison cell? Amidala risked nothing when she saved her. Yet Asajj risks worse than death by kidnapping Amidala - from both Sidious and Vader. 

Is it only her moving through these motions? Or is it the Force, guiding her by way of this debt? Is this the thing Dooku had so feared about Amidala, the ability to move people, nations, with the barest trace of force or will? 

Asajj has no true answer and it is for this reason that she firmly desires none.

“You never took the offer,” Amidala counters. 

“You still gave it.” Asajj leans back against the wall. “Tano is out there,” she continues. Amidala makes no response. “I have some contacts and once she knows I’m looking for her, she’ll come out of the woodwork of...wherever she is. She doesn’t like being hunted. When she does, that’s where you’ll go. She’ll keep you,” her eyes flick down to the round stomach, “safe.”

“From my child’s father,” Amidala rasps. 

“From Vader and Sidious.” Same thing, but she needs to hear it. 

“Do you know what’s happening to the jedi?” 

Asajj hums. “Execution. Dooku said the clones are designed to fight for Palpatine. Sidious. Not the Republic. He’s going to tell the galaxy the jedi are attempting a coup to enforce martial order, and the clones will execute them all.” They already are, actually. Asajj can feel them winking out one after another. The details are lost to her because Dooku never shared them in full, and she suspects the full plan was never unveiled to him either. 

Amidala's voice trembles, in grief or rage, she can't tell. "Obi-Wan said he killed the younglings." 

Surprising, but not. Skywalker had always had a certain wildness to his temper so him falling to the dark side isn't the surprise everyone seems to be treating it as. But younglings? That beholds a ruthlessness not even Asajj accounted for. Even more of a reason for them to hurry out of the Core System as fast as possible. 

Asajj stands. Comfort is not in her skillset, and it isn’t why she risked it all to rescue the woman from herself and her idiot lover, or that fool Kenobi who had been lying in wait in the woman’s skiff. Concealing herself from a distracted Kenobi had been easy and hearing the whole sordid affair had been interesting, particularly the part when Kenobi hid himself away in preparation to use Amidala’s better nature against her. Using a pregnant woman as a lure for a sith is a little low, even to her. It's pure luck she managed to make her way to Amidala in the time she did. Right place, right time - but coincidences are nothing in the face of the Force. Something guided her to Coruscant in that moment when the Republic crumbled, when she sensed the deaths of the jedi and saw the temple on fire.

Although for the sake of throwing off Kenobi from Amidala, as well as Vader no matter what the outcome will be of that fight - a shame she has to miss it - she left him a prize. The distorted record of Vader’s flight to Mustafar for a mission. Less a kindness for her nemesis, and more to cover Amidala’s trail from either. 

But comfort? A shoulder to cry on? Soothing murmurs of how it would all be alright? No. Tano could deal with that. 

Come whatever may after Asajj left her with Tano, it would be the fulfillment of her debt. Amidala had once saved her life and offered her a deal. 

Asajj will do the same and the slate will be wiped clean. 

**Author's Note:**

> Instead of Asajj going back to Dooku’s employ and being turned into a cybernetic berserker than Anakin kills, I thought this would be a nicer, if not quite redemption arc, for Asajj. In this headcanon, Padmé survives the birth, and they find Ahsoka and the Rebels and the rest is history (with whatever headcanon furthering details you’d all like to fill in)(and you know what maybe Asajj joins in with the Rebellion from time to time if only to show them up). 


End file.
